white mites in my worm bin

by Jane
(Austin, TX. USA)

Hello my name is Jane, and I have 2 worm bins, with about 2-3 thousand worms in each one, the bins are 30 gallon plastic totes.

The worms are doing fine and until the past week everthing was great and then I noticed what looked like tiny looking pale white little bugs that were fast moving and were in the bin traveling all over the place and also on the interior sides of the bin. I figured they were helping to break down the food.
I also noticed as I kept the bin a bit wetter and saw these bugs that it smelled more, like rotting food, not that earthy smell. Yet I wasn't overfeeding. And the bedding I had built the bins with was shredded cardbord egg cartons, peat moss, shredded newspaper.
I was trying to make sure the bin didn't get too dry as the weather was getting hotter so I kept the bin wetter and noticed that the population of these bugs was greater and that when I worked in the bin I got what looked like rashes on my arms that itched (I wore kitchen plastic gloves like you wash dishes with to prevent getting lots of dirt under my fingernails) and this was new, I'd never had this happen before.
So I looked on line and saw pictures of what resembled these bugs and it was said to be white mites. It was said to be normal for the bin, but I don't remember seeing them in the worms I got from a local worm farmer nor were they there until recently. And previously I didn't have any rashes develop when working in the bin with my plastic gloves.

So I'm wondering what others encounter with these mite type problems.
Online people speak of getting the bed dryer so I've added shredded newspaper and peat moss and Diatomaceous earth,to dry it out more. There seems to be less of these little bugs, but I still seem to get rashes when working in the bin, such as turning the material around to work the new materials into the bin.
But I've not seen this problem with the lady I got the worms from, I she said she only had it once and used Neem oil, but didn't mention any problem with bites or rashes.

Any information would be helpful. I really like my worms and had been enjoying working in the bin.

Answer from BigTex Worms
Hi there,

Yes, sounds like white mites and they are very common in every bin. Often the result of overfeeding and/or over watering. So, you did the right thing by adding dry newspaper. If you click on the link that says "Worm bin problems" there is another link on worm bin bugs (I even have a video on mites on there) and it talks about other ways to get rid of mites.

As a nurse, I would not recommend using plastic gloves, if you have a rash. I would use fabric gardening gloves. The plastic will make the rash worse. I cannot imagine the mites giving you a rash, I would guess its the overgrowth of mold/fungus because of your bin being too wet .

Dont feed or water for a week and see if they reduce. I have mites all the time.

I hope this helps,

Liz